1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a digital camera. In particular, the present invention relates to a digital camera having a movable mirror, which enables a subject image to be observed through an electronic viewfinder.
2. Description of Related Art
A digital single-lens reflex camera has an electronic viewfinder and an optical viewfinder, so that a subject image formed by an image pickup optical system is switched with a movable mirror, and can be observed through the optical viewfinder. Because of this, displacement does not occur between a subject image in a recording image and a subject image displayed with the optical viewfinder, whereby an image pickup manipulation can be performed satisfactorily.
However, the digital single-lens reflex camera needs to switch the movable mirror in accordance with an operation state. This requires a user's manual manipulation, and a time therefor needs to be kept. Particularly, in a camera with a “live view mode” in which an image generated by an image pickup element is displayed on a display portion in real time, the movable mirror needs to be switched frequently in accordance with an autofocus operation, a diaphragm adjustment operation, and an image pickup operation.
A digital single-lens reflex camera with a live view mode is disclosed by, for example, Patent Document 1 (JP 2001-272593 A).
However, in the digital single-lens reflex camera disclosed by Patent Document 1, the operability involved in switching of the movable mirror is not improved sufficiently. Therefore, even if the live view mode is set to be executable, it is difficult for a user to use it, and consequently, the user captures an image while observing it with the optical viewfinder.